Pink Roses, White Lilies
by Cryptographic DeLurk
Summary: Mai sits for a portrait. Shizuka causes delays on the way to dinner. There was too much to process, and too much to avoid forgetting, since she'd opened her eyes again and found these people – this clarity of senses. Mai & Shizuka flirty friendship fic. With background transfem!Otogi/Shizuka.


**Pink Roses, White Lilies**

by _Cryptographic DeLurk_

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"My shoulders are so stiff. My knuckles too, from holding that fan up. Who knew that sitting in place for three hours could be so painful?!" Mai let out a lilting whine. "God! And now you're making me walk around a flower shop, instead of taking me to dinner like you promised~"

"It'll only be a moment," Shizuka said. The streetlights had just lit, even though it was still just light enough to see without them. She tugged Mai gently out of the dusk, and into the shop.

Rather than roomy and aesthetic – clear glass and white, with prearranged bouquets and vases lined up on display – the flower shop was a cluttered little hole in the wall. There were wooden shelves where buckets were stacked – full of water and collections of long stemmed blooms. Flower names and prices were labelled in blue marker on small cut-outs of coloured paper, taped against the buckets. And next to them on the shelves were piled collections of spiked flower frogs, spray bottles filled with leaf shine, stacked spools of brightly patterned ribbon and scissors to cut it with. It reminded Shizuka of her group's art studio at college – all scattered supplies and leftover cups of dirty paint water on wooden benches. Perhaps that was why she found it so comfortable.

Shizuka reached out, testing the integrity of the flower stems. Wooden and solid.

"I know you're eager to do everything right, hon, now that you're finally take me out on a date and all," Mai preened. "But I don't need a bouquet. You'll win more points the sooner you get me in front of a plate of penne."

"Don't be silly," Shizuka scolded. She tapped the head of the dahlia lightly against Mai's forearm, and then quickly replaced it in the bucket with the others. "They're not for you," she frowned. "They're for Otogi-kun."

"I'm so offended!" Mai gave an exaggerated whine. "You couldn't at least wait until you were done spending time with me before going off to buy things for your boyfriend."

"Girlfriend," Shizuka corrected absently. She blushed. "And please don't tease me so much," she said softly. Mai knew how Shizuka used to feel about her.

Mai nodded. She reached out to hold Shizuka's hand, and smiled like an apology.

Shizuka nodded back, and led them further through the rows of flowers.

"I'm not sure I'll have time to pick up any tomorrow," Shizuka said. "I've got to drop off your portrait first thing in the morning. And then it's on the first train to Domino, if I want to catch Otogi-kun on the way out of the doctor's office."

"Oh? I could have driven you." Mai interjected. Shizuka noticed it was hypothetical. Past tense. Mai was always busy unless you scheduled far in advance, or were worth derailing her other plans for.

"It's alright," Shizuka said. "I already ask you for so many favours."

"Not enough," Mai replied. "I owe you kids a lot."

It was early spring and still chilly. Shizuka turned to Mai, who was wearing a fur trimmed jacket, over her biker jacket, over her bustier. The buckets were full of premature buds, still wrapped up tight in the cold. Shizuka picked up a few, and held them up against Mai's shoulder one by one, testing the colour. And then a strand of ribbon, white with gold stars.

Mai waited patiently. And when Shizuka felt safe enough, after she lowered her hands and lowered her eyes, she continued.

"It was before I met you during Battle City. I didn't really notice Otogi-kun _like that_ at the time – the way I noticed you. But I was in the hospital for my surgery, and Otogi-kun brought me flowers when Honda-kun came to pick me up. It made me happy. And I don't think I would have made it to see you and Katsuya, if they hadn't held my hand on the way to the train station. So it was important to me, even if I didn't take special notice right at first."

Shizuka turned away. She looked around for a pair of scissors. She decided she had liked the ribbon, and wanted to cut a snippet to show the shopkeeper. She gave up and hauled the spool into the crook of her shoulder, and began looking around for something specific.

"The doctor's office isn't the hospital, of course," she told Mai. "But it feels like the kind of place that you could take flowers to. Otogi-kun should be approved to start on hormones after the visit tomorrow, so I thought she'd like it if I returned the favour and brought her some flowers. It feels like a feminine kind of thing – to receive flowers."

"You say 'girlfriend' and-" Mai pointed and giggled as Shizuka picked a white lily up by the stem. "-lilies?" Mai continued, smiling. "But also 'Otogi-_kun_?'"

Shizuka blushed and twirled the bloom in her hand. "Well, she told me for now it's nice to hear me call her the same thing I always have, like she hasn't become a completely different person." Shizuka paused. "It'd be nice to drop the honorific and use a first name someday, though."

"Is that so?" Mai smiled, and Shizuka wasn't sure Mai fully understood, but- "You're so sweet," Mai said. "I guess I just don't have any choice except to support you lovebirds."

Mai walked forward, the back of her heels ghosting over the floor, and leaned over to help Shizuka sort through the bucket of lilies for the best blooms – stems with multiple flowers, not all opened. Mai was standing close, and Shizuka turned to look at the definition around her clavicle, above the swell of her breasts.

..

"_Like this?_" Mai had wrestled her biker jacket off, and hopped up on the stool, giggling as she struck a pose, held the fan in front of her face just under her eyes.

"Give me a second." Shizuka had been arranging the placement of a few space heaters. It wouldn't have been warm enough in her apartment without them, not enough for Mai to spend three hours sitting around in only a bustier. "I don't have my heart set on any one particular pose," Shizuka said. _Just so long as I can draw you_, she didn't say. "But remember don't make it so complicated you'll have trouble holding the pose for a few hours."

Mai waved her off. "_Draw me like one of your French girls,_" she said in English. And then had to explain the reference when Shizuka didn't get it. "Are you sure you don't want me to pose in the nude?" Mai smirked. "I don't have a problem with it."

"I don't think so," Shizuka said. "I might do a quick full body sketch, but I'm probably going to spend most of the time sketching and painting a portrait. And your shoulders are already uncovered so…" …_that's all I need._

"Aww," Mai pouted. "I kind of wanted to be immortalised naked~"

Shizuka blushed. "Maybe next time."

Mai held up the feathered fan, this time so it tapped the edge of her chin. And Shizuka had gotten good at sketching quickly, finding the curves and lines that made the basis of an image, and tracing the details back in. She drew the curve of Mai's uncovered shoulder on the canvas, and the way the feathers extended from the fan out behind her into the background.

And then, once the outline was complete, Shizuka laid down swathes of colour and shadow and tried to simultaneously capture the way Mai was now, and how she had seemed when Shizuka first met her at Battle City. So vivid, and yet out of focus.

Mai had been too much to process in those first few hours of unimpeded sight. Even before there had been the trip up on the blimp and everything with Malik and Katsuya and the hospital bed. First there had been Mai's voice and reassurances. The way Mai's breath caught and hissed against her teeth. The way the wind whipped and blew Mai's hair into her face as Shizuka sat next to her in Mai's speeding car. And then, when Shizuka had taken the bandages off, there was this person so larger than life – heartachingly beautiful and vivacious and utterly out of reach. And Shizuka had almost wanted to close her eyes again right there; there was so much to see.

There was so much to paint.

But after just over three hours, at which point Mai had devolved from idle humming and occasional conversation to outright complaint, Shizuka had finally managed a decent enough work in progress to tide her teachers over. She took a few photos of Mai for later reference, resolved to fill in a few more details later that night, and wrapped up so as to treat Mai to dinner as promised.

"Why did you want to paint me?" Mai asked, now helping Shizuka choose a handful of pink roses, and tufts of fern to add to the bouquet. "Why not your girlfriend? Or someone else?"

Shizuka arranged the flowers in her arm. They had a dozen of them now, between the pink roses and white lilies, and it was probably going to cost more than she would have liked at the register. "I want to paint her too – Otogi-kun. And Katsuya. Even Malik-san, if I can…" she looked anxiously to Mai. "I wanted to paint something about all of Battle City – everyone I loved, and everyone I didn't. How I felt about the whole experience. But I spent months procrastinating – trying to pin down exactly what I wanted to convey and getting stuck. I realised that I needed to break it down, and look at how I felt about things individually…"

"I see," Mai said sagely, as they approached the register. "And so it seemed natural to paint me first. After all, you can never forget about your first crush."

The cashier was eavesdropping, and made a sputtering noise at this. But when Shizuka turned to her, her eyes were trained diligently back on her calculator. She typed the cost of the individual blooms and ornaments. And Shizuka lifted the spool of gold and white ribbon onto the table. "Tied with this, please."

When she turned back, she reached out to tug on Mai's fingers.

"Even if I could forget about you, Mai-san, I wouldn't want to."

Mai swallowed her tongue and looked about ready to go the same shade of puce as her smooth lacquered nails. And Shizuka almost wanted to apologise, like she should have known Mai could dish it out but couldn't take it. But she couldn't apologise for what was true:

She didn't want to forget about Mai. She didn't want to forget about diving into the water after Katsuya. Or almost running away because she couldn't bear to watch his duel with Rishid any longer. She didn't want to forget crying at Mai's and Katsuya's bedsides with Isis. Or the way Otogi had touched her shoulder before she left, to travel back on the train to the home she'd only just escaped. _Maybe we could keep in touch?_ Otogi had said. _Not because of my stupid fight with Honda-! Just- _Shizuka didn't want to forget the way Otogi had struggled to say even the smallest truth of the matter, and eventually succeeded: _A lot of things happened in the last few days._

She didn't want to forget anything she had seen, since she'd opened her eyes again and found these people, and the clarity of senses they inspired. Maybe that's why she was always trying to draw and paint now – so she could understand everything they had shown her.

The florist sheered the ends of the flower stems, and set them in floral water tubes. She explained how to keep them refrigerated overnight, until Shizuka could deliver them tomorrow. And when Shizuka swept out of the shop with the bouquet beautifully wrapped and tucked under one arm, she wondered how much of her studies she'd need to catch up on, how many more overdue art projects would pile up, after she skipped town to go visit Otogi tomorrow. But she wanted to see Otogi, to look at her and hold her and be there for her. Everything else could wait.

Well, almost everything.

"Now that that's settled, are we finally ready for pasta?!" Mai gushed, as she skipped forward onto the street. She swung back, linked an arm through Shizuka's free one, and pulled her forward. "We done with the detours, hon?"

"Never," Shizuka laughed. "But for now."

"We better be for now," Mai sulked. But she pulled out her phone, and there was a spring in her step as she got them reoriented on the path to the Italian restaurant.

And Shizuka felt the absurd need to say, "Thank you."

"Of cour-" Mai started noncommittally, distracted as she was trying to pull up a street map of Kanazawa on her phone. And Shizuka wondered what Mai thought Shizuka was thanking her for. For letting her take a moment to go buy flowers? For agreeing to sit for a portrait? For driving all the way out here at a moment's notice? For being affectionate and loving, and making the time to spend with her when there was a time almost no one did?

_I probably wouldn't be the person I am now, without you._

"For everything," Shizuka rushed out, cutting Mai's response down the middle. She felt so inarticulate, unable once again to make sense of the flood of feelings and ideas and sensation all around her. And she didn't really think, but she hoped, that some of that had come through in the urgency of her tone. The rest would have to wait until she could finish more of her paintings.

"Of course," Mai said, more attentively this time. And Shizuka stared down at the flowers and the pavement, waiting for a time she'd be ready to look up and see Mai's reaction.

..

_Fin._


End file.
